There's a complete list and description of EVERY movie that Shatner was ever in, with a review of his performance. You can find some pretty obscure (and bad) movies on that list, plus a few good ones. You can also find some rather good reviews of his performances, and some bad ones, depending. Interesting. He actually won the "best actor" award from some private film critiquing organization for a movie in the early 60's which the reviewer says is definitely his finest performance. How about that?

Can we have a number system based on an imaginary number like the square root of -100? How long would it take to get to post #5000 in such a system? Or would we ever get there? Would we get to #5000 and #-5000 at the same time? Would my hair grow back? I wouldn't have to remarry my ex-wife would I?

There were once two brothers who both served as soldiers, one of them was rich, and the other poor. Then the poor one, to escape from his poverty, doffed his soldier's coat, and turned farmer. He dug and hoed his bit of land, and sowed it with turnip-seed. The seed came up, and one turnip grew there which became large and strong, and visibly grew bigger and bigger, and seemed as if it would never stop growing, so that it might have been called the princess of turnips, for never was such an one seen before, and never will such an one be seen again.

At length it was so enormous that by itself it filled a whole cart, and two oxen were required to draw it, and the farmer had not the least idea what he was to do with the turnip, or whether it would be a fortune to him or a misfortune. At last he thought, "if you sell it, what will you get for it that is of any importance, and if you eat it yourself, why, the small turnips would do you just as much good. It would be better to take it to the king, and make him a present of it."

So he placed it on a cart, harnessed two oxen, took it to the palace, and presented it to the king.

"What strange thing is this," said the king. "Many wonderful things have come before my eyes, but never such a monster as this. From what seed can this have sprung, or are you a favorite of good fortune and have met with it by chance."

"Ah, no", said the farmer, "no favorite am I. I am a poor soldier, who because he could no longer support himself hung his soldier's coat on a nail and took to farming land. I have a brother who is rich and well known to you, lord king, but I, because I have nothing, am forgotten by everyone."

Then the king felt compassion for him, and said, "You shall be raised from your poverty, and shall have such gifts from me that you shall be equal to your rich brother."

Then he bestowed on him much gold, and lands, and meadows, and herds, and made him immensely rich, so that the wealth of the other brother could not be compared with his.

When the rich brother heard what the poor one had gained for himself with one single turnip, he envied him, and thought in every way how he also could come by a similar piece of luck. He set about it in a much more cunning way, however, and took gold and horses and carried them to the king, and made certain the king would give him a much larger present in return. If his brother had got so much for one turnip, what would he not carry away with him in return for such beautiful things as these.

The king accepted his present, and said he had nothing to give him in return that was more rare and excellent than the great turnip. So the rich man was obliged to put his brother's turnip in a cart and have it taken to his home. There, he did not know on whom to vent his rage and anger, until bad thoughts came to him, and he resolved to kill his brother.

He hired murderers, who were to lie in ambush, and then he went to his brother and said, "Dear brother, I know of a hidden treasure, we will dig it up together, and divide it between us."

The other agreed to this, and accompanied him without suspicion. While they were on their way the murderers fell on him, bound him, and would have hanged him to a tree.

But just as they were doing this, loud singing and the sound of a horse's feet were heard in the distance. On this their hearts were filled with terror, and they pushed their prisoner hastily into the sack, hung it on a branch, and took to flight. He, however, worked up there until he had made a hole in the sack through which he could put his head.

The man who was coming by was no other than a traveling student, a young fellow who rode on his way through the wood joyously singing his song. When he who was aloft saw that someone was passing below him, he cried, "Good day. You have come at a lucky moment."

The student looked round on every side, but did not know whence the voice came. At last he said, "Who calls me?"

Then an answer came from the top of the tree, "Raise your eyes, here I sit aloft in the sack of wisdom. In a short time have I learnt great things, compared with this all schools are a jest, in a very short time I shall have learnt everything, and shall descend wiser than all other men. I understand the stars, and the tracks of the winds, the sand of the sea, the healing of illness, and the virtues of all herbs, birds and stones. If you were once within it you would feel what noble things issue forth from the sack of knowledge."

The student, when he heard all this, was astonished, and said, "Blessed be the hour in which I have found you. May not I also enter the sack for a while."

He who was above replied as if unwillingly, "For a short time I will let you get into it, if you reward me and give me good words, but you must wait an hour longer, for one thing remains which I must learn before I do it."

When the student had waited a while he became impatient, and begged to be allowed to get in at once, his thirst for knowledge was so very great.

So he who was above pretended at last to yield, and said, "In order that I may come forth from the house of knowledge you must let it down by the rope, and then you shall enter it."

So the student let the sack down, untied it, and set him free, and then cried, now draw me up at once, and was about to get into the sack.

"Halt," said the other, "that won't do," and took him by the head and put him upside down into the sack, fastened it, and drew the disciple of wisdom up the tree by the rope. Then he swung him in the air and said, "How goes it with you, my dear fellow. Behold, already you feel wisdom coming, and you are gaining valuable experience. Keep perfectly quiet until you become wiser."

Thereupon he mounted the student's horse and rode away, but in an hour's time sent someone to let the student out again.

I don't think you will find the strange shapes "6" and "7" in the lexicon of base 2, Rapaire. 0.1.2.10.11.12.20.21.22...etc.,is how it goes.

Thanks for being truthful -- my track record is similar.

But let us not get carried away with turthfulness, especially here -- this is a thread for BS, after all. I tried to start the "Mother of all Truthfulness" thread once, but nobody wanted to post anything to it...

In what base? 2? 27? 10? 16? 8? 42? Pi? e? the natural logarithm of 3? This matters! You can't do such mathematics without defining your base!

(Actually, it doesn't really matter all that much since we've pretty much agreed to use base 10 for common transactions, but I ask so that Amos will continue to think I know math. Little does he know that I flunked Algebra twice, plane geometry once, got a "C" in analytic geo, a "B" in trig, and flunked college statistics. Little does anyone know that I can use a slide rule like a pro -- and little does anyone care in these days of calculators. "My name is Truthful James.")

Watch it, LH. Conagra owns Jiffy Pop -- really. It's a kind of popcorn that comes in its own popping pan (i.e., it's not microwave popcorn). Conagra has authorized this friendly warning, prior to the unfriendly warning, which comes prior to them suing the shit outa ya. Since you're poor and therefore don't got no money, after Conagra finishes with ya you won't even be able to post here, if ya don't just blow off with the breeze.

Bill, I wouldn't THINK of tieing you down. My insignificant emotional needs are as nothing compared to your need to be the man you really are. No indeed! Feel free to go back down to La-la Land (California) and visit Amos and show him the error of his ways. As you know, Bill, I have Amos's street address, which he gave me in a moment of weakness...he was trying to secure a Joan Rivers inflatable doll, and figured I could find it for him...at any rate, I do have his street address and so you will be able to visit him without delay.

I'm sure this will straighten everything out. You may even get to have a chat with Liebenscheiss.

He's far to shy to say this, but Amos loves your singing. If you do get down to San Diego to see him, be sure to sing for him. Believe me, he'll be thrilled. (And no matter what he says, he's really one of your biggest fans. Ask him to show you his paintball outfit.)

I have thought about it long and hard, old friend, and I have made up my mind. I am leaving Orillia for good, moving to Los Angeles on a permanent basis, and getting an American passport. I am forced by Amos' insightful grandiloquence to the realization that I have NOT been good for you no matter how much you and I needed each other. Sure, we felt we were helping -- I brought some color to your drab life in the boonies, and you brought some desperately needed admiration to my collapsing esteem. But that's just another name for a codependent relation ship Little Hawk, and sooner or later it could only leads us both into deeper misery.

So, farewell. Tell Amos not to worry, I'll be fine, and I might even get down to San Diego to see him. Maybe he'll change his mind about me if he gets to talk to me in person, now that I have taken responsibility for this situation!

Perhaps so, although you are trivializing a very important essay which you failed to discern in its correct perspective because you deemed it a meaningless flight toward the 40000th post. Hidden by that trivial and illogical flight the actual contents of the essay may be the only rational statement made on this thread!

But your Shatner obsession is meaningless behaviour towards a compulsive end. Just as shallow and just as mad. So I don' see much merit in discussing it with you. Sure you can respond with enthusiastic rhetoric about how mad everyone else is, making it perfectly understandable that you should seek to resurrect the bloated memory of a weak-chinned ex-media figure. Make sperfect sense in the midst of the madhouse. But I will have nothging more to do with it (sorry -- "him") no matter how you justify it.

There's nothing unhealthy about my Shatner fantasies, Amos. But there is something unhealthy about someone posting 19 or so times in a row on one thread just so he can get the 4000th post! Think about it. It's compulsive behaviour directed toward a meaningless end. Meanwhile, el ted is posting to every 100th post he can find on any thread whatsoever. More compulsive behaviour! Then you have people consumed for months by the fanatical drive to make Millard Fillmore the most popular president on an insignificant website that manufactures little plastic toy president figures that talk and wave their hands around!

And you say I'm avoiding reality?????? Good God, man, this whole place is becoming a lunatic asylum. Focusing on Shatner is a return to basic family values and the other virtues that once made this a viable civilization.

Sit down with Herr Liebenscheiss, Amos, and have a good long heart to heart talk. Let it all out. Come clean. You'll be glad you did.

Did you actually say "5000th post! I win!!!", or did you just say you will at some point in the future have the 5000th post? Because I have declared my post the 5000th post... planted my flag on it, if you will, and if you only said you would get it at some point in the future, it looks to me like I beat you to it.

I believe, Little Hawk, that you have hid behind that cheap shag toupee for long enough. Your fantasy of William Shatner is unhealthy, and you know it. If you will not release this aberrated solution and come forward in your own right to confront your problems and thus rise above them, I will have no choice but to ignore the pseudo-persona which you have so clumsily invented to distract people from noticing your difficulties. I mean this with the best of all possible intentions for your true well-being.

Your spelling is deteriorating, Amos. I sense that you are cracking under the strain. If you knew just how many key posting positions I have already laid claim to and and what little expense I have incurred in the process, you would be rendered either speechless or incoherent, I'm sure.

Well, it is clear that CarolC and Willie-Wanker both share some confusion about this counting business.

Funny how Little Hawk has no respect for fair dibses, and then tries to float Big Willie using fair dibsies to claim a post so far in the future no-one cares about it. Can you say HYP-o-crite? SURE you can!!

Bill, your success is far less ersxtensive than even you believe, let alone what your "adorting" "fans" believe. In a few small ways you have done something or other, but now you ar ebut a rug-headed over-weight wannabe has-been actor who is losing his smile.

Shat: past tense of the verb "shit". -ner: Suffix applied to indicate one who practices a trade; e.g, scrivener.

Therefore, you know what you are. ------------ Dear Madame Boleyn,

Your knowledge of humankind, demonstrated by your quick assessment of a puling and sniveling actor who at his best out-rants Herod and at his worst indeed treads the stage trippingly, is surpassed only by your beauty and wit. -------------- Now that I have achieved all numbers I no longer need a post boast. I am all numbers, I am the Universe. All is within me, for I am All.

You are wise beyond your years, CarolC. Now you know how I made it so quickly in Hollywood and collected all those royalties and got rich. Fools wait. Smart people claim their spot in the sun well in advance. I have also reserved the 15,000th and the 20,000 posts on this thread and all multiples of 100 on a number of other key Mudcat threads. I did it quietly, of course, without fanfare. I am now well positioned to rake in the rent on those posts when they occur. For instance, el ted owes me several thousand dollars already for posting to spot 100 on a whole bunch of threads.

Sir or Madam - I thank thee for your kind words, which bring peace to my heart - if I should still have a heart which, being unbodied at the present, I misdoubt - but the sentiments remain still valid. I find myself most perplexed in that I but attempted to speak with my daughter and find myself suddenly transported over the expanse of 400 years into a future I find difficult to imagine. My gracious host has assured me that I shall be returned unto my proper era within the sennight so that I miss not my natural span of years in the afterlife. The Weather described in thy missive seems most pleasantly warm - though I recognize not the placenames? This 'Seattle' and 'Texas' mayhaps would be in Ireland?

Anne

post scriptum william Shatner - sirrah! It strikes my sensibilities that thou art a braggert and windbag to make the worst behaved playwright of my day appear the most pious monk! Thou art an offense to the senses in all manner. Would that I were alive that I might order you from my presence and that of all right thinking persons.

Wow. So by the Shatner rule of pre-post post allocation, whoever posts on a post you have reserved/claimed for yourself, like in my case, the 5000th post, they are in fact just renting that post from you. Very cool! Somebody's gonna owe me some big bucks alright.